“For me,” Alex said solemnly. “For me, Reverend Maccanish- you’re in the middle of a spiritual battle. You’ve been invaded. And being taken off-guard and ill-prepared, the only thing you could do was dig in, keep your heads down, and wait for reinforcement.”
“A spiritual battle,” Maccanish repeated, his eyes shining. He began nodding his head. “Aye-aye. So what are you? Are you the reinforcement? Are you like-a spiritual general or something?” he asked eagerly.
“Me?” said Alex. “A general? No, I’m not a general.”
He paused for dramatic effect-he couldn’t help himself.
“I’m Black Ops.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Lifiendes
1
Before . . .
The yfelgop laid perfectly still in a pool of its own blood.
As soon as Daniel and Freya felt able, they stood up, brushed themselves off, and then very cautiously opened the door and crept back downstairs. Modwyn was standing in the hall, talking to Frithfroth and two guards in an urgent and frantic manner. She looked up as Daniel and Freya descended and cried out, “There they are!” All eyes turned up to them.
They saw Freya holding the yfelgop spear, saw the dark blood on Daniel’s shirt and his own blood dripping from his hand to the stone floor, and gave a gasp of horror. Modwyn rushed forward, arms outstretched.
“Oh, my dear children! Where were you? What happened to you?”
Daniel and Freya felt hands on them, searching them for injuries. They heard questions that came so fast they could not answer them. They tried their best to give a short explanation of what had just happened.
“Frithfroth!” Modwyn called when they told her of the attack.
“Tell the guard to sweep the tower! The lifiendes have been attacked.” She turned back to them and examined the cuts on Daniel’s face. Drawing herself up, she turned to Cnafa and Cnapa.
“Lead these two to the kitchens,” she instructed. “Then bring hot water, poultice, and bindings.”
Daniel and Freya allowed themselves to be led through the silent hall. The kitchen was a cold room with a high ceiling. There were several large ovens that looked very dusty and long stonetopped metal tables that did not appear to have been used recently.
Two metal stools were dragged before them, and they sat down gratefully. Cnapa placed a bowl of water and a cloth before him.
Modwyn entered and hurried over to them. Kneeling before Daniel and Freya, her green dresses flowing out around her, she cleaned Daniel’s wounds as they explained what happened in more detail.
“My poor ??elingas,” she said when they had finished. “I was so worried when I did not see you with the others.” Daniel’s wound had been cleaned of blood. “These are not deep. They will not scar.”
Modwyn cleaned the cloth in the bowl and pushed it away.
“The bell will sound again when the geard is cleared,” she said.
“Until then you must stay in the hall. I must go and find news of the battle. I will send Cnafa and Cnapa to bring you some food. I will return shortly.”
With that and a sweep of her long gown, she left them.
Daniel and Freya went back into the main hallway and found a bench out of the way of the terrified Ni?ergearders. In a few moments Cnafa brought them a tea-like spiced drink, and Cnapa brought them some more of the flatbread and dried meat.
They sat, sipping at the drink from warm clay bowls and chewing very small mouthfuls of food, which they did not taste. As they ate, they noticed the townspeople watching them. They wouldn’t say anything to each other, just stared and looked away whenever Daniel or Freya made eye contact.
After a time they heard the tolling of a bell. Modwyn entered the hall again.
“The attack is over,” she announced. “The streets are clear. But be cautious in returning to your homes. Do not go alone.”
She stepped aside to allow the people out of the hall and made her way to Daniel and Freya.
“Come with me,” she said.
They left the Langtorr by the large double doors. Once outside she asked a guard at the gate whose arms and chest were covered with putrefying brown blood where the main force was gathered.
He had an odd look on his face-a kind of dazed, unbelieving look. He pointed with a wavering hand towards one end of the city. “Over-over there . . .”
“Is all well?” Modwyn asked the guard. “We were told that the city was clear.”
“And so have I been told, idesweard. And so it seems,” the guard replied. “But for my life I know not why.”
“What mean you by that?”
The guard paused, seemed to choke slightly, and then continued weakly, “The wall has been breached.”
“Yes, of course we know-”
“Nay, ni?ercwen. Not just the defenses, but the wall itself has been broken.”
Modwyn’s eyes widened. “Where?”
The guard could only gesture weakly. Her eyes blazing, Modwyn spun on her heel and started off in the direction he had pointed. “Come, lifiendes,” she said. “Hurry.”
They rushed through the streets of the underground city alongside Modwyn, passing people returning to their homes and assessing damages. Everywhere they looked-alongside walls and heaped in the middle of the streets-lay bodies of yfelgopes, nearly all of them headless. Daniel wondered why this was, but soon saw that groups of knights and guards were systematically gathering corpses together and chopping the heads from the dead enemies’ bodies. He shuddered and looked away.
Rounding a corner, they saw the city wall with its massive carved trees rise up in front of them-but it wasn’t as it had been.
A large U-shaped section had crumbled away, creating an avalanche of stone that engulfed the nearby houses. Modwyn gave a startled cry when she saw the gap and ran towards it.
There were many guards standing in the breach, their shoulders tense and weapons ready. Swi?gar and Ecgbryt were there, perched on a pile of dusty stones, gazing out into the blackness, cautious and tense. The wall looked as if it had just fallen apart, like the wall of a sand castle.
They were still a fair distance away when they came to the first bits of rubble from the wall. Blocks of stone had fallen against some of the houses, piling like a grey drift of snow. As they started to climb the pile, they were surprised to find that the rocks crumbled to a fine powder underfoot-it was like walking up a snow bank. Daniel knelt down and picked up a large clump of painted ivy. He was able to lift it quite easily. It was brittle and he found he could flake pieces away with his thumb. The sensation was like holding a compressed brick of fine sand.
As they neared the peak of the dusty heap, they became aware of a rhythmic pounding sound: dull, soft, and strong, like the pounding of blood. Modwyn and Freya climbed up to stand behind Swi?gar and Ecgbryt.
“What is it?” asked Freya. “What’s that sound?”
“It is the ’gopes,” stated Swi?gar. “They are letting us know that they bide.”
They all stood and listened to the pounding, pounding, pounding of thousands of hands against the dirt-a steady, synchronized, patient beat. “Why aren’t they attacking?” Daniel asked.
Swi?gar pointed into the darkness.
Standing at the edge of the circle of light thrown by the city’s lanterns was a dim, reddish figure pacing back and forth, just in front of the gap in the wall. “Who’s that?” he asked.
“It is Ealdstan,” said Ecgbryt.
“Ealdstan? But . . .” Freya remembered the figure falling out of the window as they raced to the Langtorr. She had forgotten about it until just now but remembered the fall replayed in her head, the swirling robes riffling like a falling flame. Ealdstan must have more power in him than he had given them reason to believe. The swaggering figure striding up and down the battle line in front of the haunting, pounding rhythm of the yfelgopes didn’t act like the old man Daniel and Freya had met. He was strong and spry. Something about the way he held himself made him seem haughty-challenging.